Read Poems by Alex Van De Linder

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The Grime (Untrue)

With burnt plastic you exhale
Soft hair and skin and small weight on dirty mattress
A paper weight pressing down
I split the wire and I stored the glass bottle in the cabinet beneath the sink.
Where I thought of kissing you.
In the room I put my fingers in your mouth,
Where she heard everything to the other wall,
Where we held each other.

With burnt plastic I exhale
And with a school-issued laptop.
From showering in clothes
From swimming in clothes
To a clinging
In the mouth and on the skin
I didn't bring a toothbrush

Will the floor welcome me 
Where there is nowhere to put my weight?
"I can get through anything.
Through any night,"
I tell myself
And it is true.
When my heart felt like
A hopping cricket or
A feather falling or
A tire rolling or
A record skipping or
A ball being squeezed tightly by a fist,
It kept working and pumping blood.

When I feel it run in my neck
Or when I saw it open on my hip,
When I see it in the toilet too
It runs.
Unlike when I run 
It is controlled.
Pump bump beating.
When my feet strike the ground I am not sure what they will do next.
Like I may fall upwards with a quick flip.
No, there are rules. 

Copyright © Alex Van De Linder | Year Posted 2026

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